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Surge, Metavariants and becoming Infected

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PiXeL01

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« on: <05-18-18/1910:59> »
Maybe I’ve missed a paragraph handling the following hypothetical scenario, but reason for asking is back in the day metavariants and the infected were modifiers on attributes meaning it would be easy to make an Ogre wendigo should you want to. But in 5th edition everything has set attribute blocks so I was wondering what would happen to a metavariant becoming Infected.
Do they just get the “generic” stat blocks or should these be modified to express the
Original generic makeup of the host of the virus?

Also what would happen if someone with Surge got Infected?
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SpellBinder

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« Reply #1 on: <05-18-18/2113:59> »
Yeah, seemed easier in the previous edition.  In the case of this one I'd say regardless of ork or ogre origin, use the generic wendigo stat block for post infection and move on.

As for SURGE & Infected I'd probably go with a stacked effect unless the infection type has something along the same lines from a SURGE bonus (like losing SURGE claws and fangs in favor of the infected version) as the virus would likely try to rewrite a similar trait to its own genetic sequence.

Overbyte

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« Reply #2 on: <05-18-18/2257:52> »
You can still do this. In Run Faster there are rules for making infected chars:.

RF p134
Newly created Infected PC characters are assumed to have been recently Infected, or at very least to share the qualities of the recently Infected. Fledgling Infected do not, in general, begin their new lives with the entire gamut of modified attributes that NPC Infected do. Each Infected quality lists both the Physical and Mental Attributes that can be improved by HMHVV. The newly Infected PC may increase two Physical attributes by one point each, or one Physical attribute by two points. Likewise, they may increase two Mental attributes by one point each, or one Mental Attribute by two points. The attributes they select must come from the Improved Physical Attributes and Improved Mental Attributes lists included with each quality. The character’s new minimum and maximum attributes are listed in the Infected Metatype Attribute Table (p. 135).
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Mollari

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« Reply #3 on: <05-20-18/2153:46> »
I think the key point to this is that the infected qualities have pre-requisites of being human, elf, troll, dwarf, orc etc.

None of them list metavarients, so the question is:

Do SURGE or Metavarient races qualify as being their parent race or as something completely different?

PiXeL01

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« Reply #4 on: <05-21-18/0105:58> »
From what I got from the answers to my question then Yes, metavariants as regarded as their parent race when faced with the virus. All attributes are modified to reflect those of their “new” Infected race even if higher or lower.

If you are a face don’t get Infected with the Krieger strain as becoming a ghoul has a serious impact on your charisma.
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ShadowcatX

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« Reply #5 on: <05-21-18/0932:44> »
Personally, I would reverse engineer the stat adjustments for whatever infected and then apply that to the altered meta type's stat adjustments to get specific maximums and minimums for specific combos if my pcs were going that route, but for npcs that's probably more work than I would really want to put in so I'd basically just eyeball it if I worried about their stats at all.

DigitalZombie

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« Reply #6 on: <05-30-18/0328:13> »
I would agree with ShadowcatX.
An Oni is still an ork etc.

And some of the metavariants differs quite alot from the base race - like gnomes vs dwarves. He would have to bulk up if he became infected and had to use standard tolkien dwarf stats as a base.

firebug

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« Reply #7 on: <05-30-18/0840:43> »
My two cents on this are also that the metavariant changes would still apply; the chart in the book gives the stats for a non-variant because that's the default, and listing the possible attributes for every combination of metavariant + infected strain would take several pages of charts, in a book that already has that.

I'd keep the SURGE stuff too.  A changeling ghoul would be an awesome NPC.  Though I imagine that, once you're infected, you can't express SURGE.  It has to have happened before the infection, or never.
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